Front Door Restoration

New door numbers for Calgary Trend House

In the fall of 2013 we undertook a restoration of our original front door. Well, to be honest, the lock broke and we had to cut out the bolt to get the door open, so I guess that was a sign that the time was right.

The biggest change we noticed was that the door had a mail slot installed in it some time in the past. Not only did it look not correct, it let in a ton of cold in the winter so we decided now was the time to get rid of that.We considered getting a new door but of course it turned out to be a custom size, so we decided to keep the original. So we had to figure out a way to block up the hole and make it seem like it was never there. Since it was a hollow core door, we needed to come up with a way to brace the hole from the inside in order to patch the exterior – and that was done with some pieces of scrap wood which were shaved down until they could be fit into the cavity and provide a place to adhere a piece of plywood the same thickness as the door skin – after tracing out the shape of the hole onto a piece of paper and transferring it to the plywood.

Another challenge was dealing with a doorknob that is further offset to the centre than normal. While the replacement knob we purchased from Rejuvenation had the option of purchasing additional backset links, of course the standard offset didn’t match the offset of the door in the Trend House. Luckily, by mixing some of the old parts with the new reproduction parts and slightly moving the handle we were able to make it work.

In the end we restored the door to it’s original state without a mail slot cut into it, and gave it a new kickplate, reproduction knob and escutcheon inside and out and painted it a very awesome mid-century orange. And we finally got a chance to put on our Neutra inspired house numbers that we found for $7 apiece at an Ace Hardware store in Palm Springs a few years earlier.